An Asimov Review

The following is a review of Asimov's final book of fiction. (Apart, that
is, from a pair of mediocre collections of short stories and essays:
Gold and Magic.) I wrote it when the book was finally
published, after several of the portions had already appeared in Asimov's
Science Fiction. I posted it to a couple of Los Angeles bulletin
boards.

Forward the Foundation, Isaac Asimov's last novel of the Foundation,
has just been published by Doubleday books. (List price is $23.50, but I've
seen it for as low as $14.10 at Bookstar, so shop around.) It is not, as
some ad copy may lead you believe, the climax of the series, since it comes
between Prelude to Foundation and Foundation. And truth to
tell, but the "action" of the book was in large part pretty well
implicit in what had already been published. It adds nothing necessary to
the saga of the fall of the Galactic Empire and the rise of the Foundation.
But--

As a book of characters it is, relatively for Asimov, remarkable. He
fills the aging Hari Seldon (seen as a young man in Prelude and,
briefly, as a relic in Foundation) with passion and love and pain,
dedication, determination and despair. And all of this in pursuit of his
ultimate goal, the setting up on the planet Terminus of the Encyclopedia
Galactica Foundation with the intent of rebuilding human civilization after
the fall of the political entity of the Galactic Empire.

I mentioned the characterization. There is also the description of a society
with declining social services and decaying infrastructure, painfully
reminiscent of our country today. There is a character, a political
pedagogue, who reminds me at turns of, well, Hitler, Pat Robertson, and even
H. Ross Perot. There are robots (chiefly behind the scenes), court
intrigues, plots, spies and counterspies, friends, lovers, sons and
granddaughters, enough to keep you entertained to the end.

But most of all it is the story of Hari Seldon as he loses nearly everyone
he has ever cared for, but grasps the future.